1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to electronic commerce and, more particularly, to a method for automating the process of searching for and acquiring commission-earning products offered for sale on one or more Vendor Websites and selectively incorporating the acquired products into an Affiliate Website.
2. Background Information
Over the past several years, use of the internet for the sale of goods and services has rapidly grown. Online shopping has become a routine method used by consumers for the purchase of goods and services and is supplanting some of the more traditional purchasing methods, such as mail-order catalogs and television shopping networks. The internet has made available to consumers countless sources of competitively-priced goods and services which may be selected, ordered, and received on an expedited basis (e.g., overnight) by a consumer without requiring the consumer to leave his or her home.
Various online mechanisms that enable comparative price shopping and product sampling and comparison are currently being utilized, and newer electronic commerce methods are continuously being developed to improve the online shopping experience. The convenience and ease of use of internet shopping has ensured the continued existence of this relatively new form of shopping. Although it is unlikely to replace retail outlets as the leading source of revenue for retailers, internet shopping is likely to continue in growth and to expand to other forms of communication mediums such as interactive television and wireless information networks.
The “vendor/affiliate” scheme has grown to become one of the most common methods used for the sale of goods over the internet. “Primary” or “stocking” online vendors are those that maintain an inventory of goods that are offered for sale on a so-called “Vendor Website”. A Vendor Website is any website maintained by a primary vendor of goods or services through which such goods or services may be directly purchased by consumers. Vendor Websites typically contain HTML product code for each product offered for sale online. The product code includes graphical and text descriptions of the product along with pricing information and embedded links to the vendor's purchasing resource.
Some online vendors offer “registered affiliates” the ability to acquire these HTML product codes from their Vendor Website and incorporate them into an “Affiliate Website” to enable consumers to purchase the vendor's goods indirectly through the Affiliate Website, while offering the registered affiliate a commission for such sales. As used herein, the term “Affiliate Website” means any website maintained by a member of the general public who has become a registered affiliate of a Vendor Website. As will be appreciated, any website may theoretically serve as an Affiliate Website.
The vendor/affiliate scheme provides primary online vendors with the ability to dramatically increase sales by permitting their goods to appear for sale on an unlimited number of Affiliate Websites on the internet. Thus, for instance, the goods sold online at well-known Vendor Websites such as AMAZON.COM, ALLPOSTERS.COM, E-MERCHANDISE.COM, and ART.COM may be purchased directly through such Vendor Websites. Additionally, consumers may purchase goods sold by these primary vendors through a continuously increasing number of Affiliate Websites operated by non-stocking vendors. Many of the most commonly visited websites serve as Affiliate Websites for a large number of vendors.
In particular, many well-known Vendor Websites have accumulated large numbers of registered affiliates who have registered to become non-exclusive dealers of selected goods sold on the Vendor Website. The vendor/affiliate scheme provides the registered affiliate with the ability to operate a “virtual” mail-order house in a manner that is significantly easier to implement than the expense and burden associated with maintaining an inventory of goods. The vendor/affiliate scheme dispenses with the need for the operator of an Affiliate Website to maintain an inventory of merchandise and to create product codes for its goods. Moreover, the vendor/affiliate scheme provides registered affiliates with autonomy in that many primary vendors ship goods ordered through Affiliate Websites with the identity of the registered affiliate on the packing label so that it appears to consumers that the purchased goods originated from the registered affiliate rather than the primary vendor.
The vendor/affiliate scheme has proven to be a tremendously effective method for the sale of goods over the internet. There are currently over one million registered affiliates of the AMAZON.COM Vendor Website alone, and a significant portion of the revenue generated by many online vendors is actually generated by sales made by registered affiliates.
Despite its success, the conventional vendor/affiliate scheme remains elusive to most members of the general public because it is somewhat difficult and inconvenient to implement. Any person may become a registered affiliate by obtaining a unique “Affiliate Commission Number/ID”, otherwise referred to as a “tracking number” from each vendor. By obtaining a tracking number, the operator of the Affiliate Website may then become a non-exclusive dealer of any of the products offered for sale on the Vendor Website.
However, the method of searching for products and incorporating such products into an Affiliate Website remains somewhat sophisticated and inconvenient. In order to search for products on a Vendor Website and incorporate corresponding product codes into an Affiliate Website, the registered affiliate must engage in a lengthy process with the Vendor Website. The registered affiliate must also insert the proper tracking number into the product code for each product incorporated into the Affiliate Website to ensure that a commission is duly paid to the registered affiliate for each sale made through the Affiliate Website. Sales occur when users visit the Affiliate Website and purchase goods from that website through a link to the Vendor Website incorporated into the product data.
A significant drawback currently associated with the conventional vendor/affiliate scheme is that it requires advanced knowledge and a substantial amount of time to implement. For instance, a keyword search for suitable products performed on the AMAZON.COM Vendor Website using a search term such as the name of a well-known movie (e.g., “TITANIC”) would yield a random selection of hundreds of different products in many different product categories, such as pre-recorded movies on videocassette and DVD, wearing apparel, pre-recorded music, books, periodicals, various types of artwork, and the like, many of which a registered affiliate may have no interest in featuring on an Affiliate Website. Thus, the registered affiliate must manually select specific products of interest. Thereafter, the appropriate code must be generated for each of the selected products, the tracking number must be inserted into the product code for each product, and the Affiliate Website must be manually updated to incorporate the product data. This process requires substantial knowledge of website creation.
Furthermore, the conventional vendor/affiliate scheme requires the registered affiliate to generate the product code one at a time for each product of interest complete with the registered affiliate's unique tracking number inserted therein. Not only is the initial process of obtaining products of interest a tedious task, but the process of updating an Affiliate Website is also quite burdensome.
For example, AMAZON.COM refers to this conventional scheme as “Get HTML” because it results in searching for and “getting” the HTML product codes associated with products sold on the AMAZON.COM Vendor Website. However, the Get HTML process is cumbersome and complicated to use. For example, when the typical “Get HTML” process is performed by a registered affiliate on the AMAZON.COM website in search for a DVD of the movie “TITANIC”, the registered affiliate must visit the AMAZON.COM Vendor Website, log in with his or her email address and password, activate a link to visit the so-called “Associates Central” section, and click on the “Build-A-Link” option to indicate that the registered affiliate wishes to create a link to the AMAZON.COM site on the Affiliate Website for a particular product. The registered affiliate must then click on the option “Individual Item Links” and then on the “Build Some” option. Thereafter, the registered affiliate must select the type of products required or leave the default setting as “All Products”. A keyword (e.g., “TITANIC”) is then entered by the registered affiliate, and the “Get HTML” process proceeds.
Upon completion, the registered affiliate must view all retrieved products and decide which are required, such as a DVD. Thereafter, the registered affiliate must click on the “Get HTML” button associated with the desired product and wait for the product data to be generated with the registered affiliate's unique tracking number inserted therein. Once this process is complete, the registered affiliate must copy all the generated code to the “clipboard” of a suitable computer program and then paste the copied code into the registered affiliate's database or web page. The database or web page is then saved and uploaded to a server on which the Affiliate Website is located.
Aside from the large number of manual steps involved in the “Get HTML” process and other like processes, the conventional method for acquiring product codes in the online vendor/affiliate scheme is also very slow because only one set of product codes can be generated at a time. If a large number of product codes are required, a considerable amount of time and manpower are required.
A somewhat faster method is the so-called “Keyword Links” method, which allows registered affiliates to acquire multiple products displayed on a Vendor Website for incorporation into an Affiliate Website. However, this known method is also complicated and time-consuming. This method is enabled when the registered affiliate clicks on the “Keyword Links” button of the AMAZON.COM website and selects the type of products required (such as a DVD) from a list, along with a keyword (e.g., “TITANIC”). The registered affiliate then views retrieved products within graphic boxes generated by AMAZON.COM while selecting the required box to display, i.e., a DVD. The remaining steps are identical to those of the “GET HTML” method.
Similarly, the “Virtual Shop” scheme on ALLPOSTERS.COM allows a user to enter a keyword to search for multiple products. The user can then select which products to retrieve.
Aside from the time-consuming nature of some of the conventional methods described above, another drawback of these methods is that the products obtained can only be contained and displayed in a so-called AMAZON box, which is a fixed box having a format and location specified by the vendor. For instance, some of the existing scripts available to registered affiliates do not allow much control over where and how AMAZON.COM products are displayed on Affiliate Websites. In addition, with some of these scripts, it is not possible to display more than the number of products that an AMAZON.COM box can contain, which is currently limited to a maximum number of 8 products.
A lengthy log-in process for some of these scripts is currently necessary to enable a vendor to generate the registered affiliate's unique tracking number and incorporate it into the product code of the searched for and selected product. There is no currently available method or system that allows a registered affiliate to automatically search a plurality of Vendor Websites and retrieve multiple products from a single keyword list while automatically inserting a registered affiliate's unique tracking number for each Vendor Website into the retrieved product codes before displaying and marketing such products on an Affiliate Website.
In view of the foregoing shortcomings of the prior art, there is a need for a method capable of automating the process of acquiring commission-earning product codes for one or more products offered for sale on one or more Vendor Websites, selectively incorporating the acquired product codes into an Affiliate Website, and updating or replacing the product codes in the Affiliate Website as desired. There is a further need for an intuitive, easy-to-use computer program that can be used or easily updated for use with any and all Vendor Websites and vendor/affiliate schemes without requiring affiliates to learn new systems and methods each time a new Vendor Website or product search scheme is introduced.